The 98.7-Pound Noodled Catfish of Lake Tawakoni

Noodling means catching a catfish with your bare hands, and in late June 2023 Justin White and Drew Moore pulled a flathead out of Lake Tawakoni, Texas that made the whole sport look up: 98.7 pounds on the certified scale at Duck Cove Marina, possibly the biggest catfish ever noodled and weighed on certified equipment. Texas keeps no official hand-caught category, which only sharpens the achievement: the scale doesn't care about paperwork. After the weigh-in, they released the giant alive, back into the lake for the next brave pair of hands.